This dinosaur tweets – and it’s totally worth a follow

Oh, what a time to be alive and on social media.

While First Amendment attorneys are legitimately arguing whether the president can block people on Twitter, someone gave California’s possible state dinosaur its own Twitter account – and it’s pretty entertaining.

The account for the plant-eating, duck-billed Augustynolophus (@augustynolophus) is a publicity tool, no doubt, created to lobby the legislature and rally the public behind the idea of having a state dinosaur. Most of its 78 tweets are links, retweets and replies to news stories about the dino discovery and the legislative process around #AB1540. That’s the assembly bill authored by Santa Monica democrat Richard Bloom.

Several of the Tweets involve proper name pronunciation (it’s august-steen-ah-lo-fuss Morissi, FYI.). The Orange County band Echo Sparks asked for song-writing purposes. Jeremy D. Thomson (@Reelpolitik) used the name to make a Smiths joke.

Augustynolophus has his own jokes, too. What do you call a paleontologist who sleeps all the time?

And the account bio makes it clear the dinosaur isn’t taking itself too terribly seriously. “Native Californian, Los Angeles resident, older than Jerry Brown (barely), vegetarian, and firm believer in science.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Twitter account without some trolling:

Or the sharing a good meme:

If nothing else, now you know #fossilfriday is a hashtag people use.

This story was originally published June 8, 2017 at 12:40 PM.